The term apparently has been co-opted and used against the Washington Post, NY Times, CNN and other main stream media purveyors of some times fake news for the Washington Post’s liking. Margaret Sullivan, previously a public editor at the New York Times, writing for the Washington Post referenced uses of the term fake news by former Senator Jim DeMint, Info Wars’ Alex Jones and an “arch conservative webstite” (unnamed but linked to Stop the Take Over .org) in her recent column.

For Ms. Sullivan such use by a “tea partier”, a “conspiracy theorist” and an “arch- conservative website”, of the term fake news was enough for her to conclude the term needed to be retired. In the manner of a top PC word police officer, Ms. Sullivan declared that the word fake news needed to removed from the lexicon because it had been co-opted and become removed from its original meaning.

The term “fake news” is not going away. The main stream media weaponized the term fake news and created a Frankenstein. CNN was on the receiving end of a “fake news” truth bomb last week when President- Elect Donald Trump silenced a CNN reporting by calling his organization “fake news”.

According to Rush Limbaugh, the New York Times will no longer use the term “fake news”. Seems the left’s “fake news” campaign to discredit alternative competing media outlets has backfired on them. Charges of “fake news” began soon after the Presidential election was over as an excuse for Hillary Clinton’s defeat.

Alternative media bloggers and you tubers leveled charges of “fake news” back at main stream news outlets and created their own fake news outlet list that included the New York Times, the Washington Post (for peddling the prop or not and Russian hacking of a Vermont power plant fake news stories) and CNN.

But no “fake news” charge was delivered so decisively as when Donald Trump yesterday silenced CNN reporter Dan Acosta by telling him his news organization was terrible and “fake news”.

BOOM!

It can only get worse from here for the main stream media, so the New York Times has chosen to cut its losses and stop using the term fake news.

Perhaps President Trump can call a reporter “racist” at his next news conference?